Ultionus is a love-letter to the home computer arcade games of the late 80s and early 90s, with colorful 2D visuals, catchy chiptune music by the legendary Jake 'Virt' Kaufman, and 7 stages of hard-as-nails gameplay.

Buy Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge

Reviews

“The levels and characters are all fun to look at, and the whole world seems lush and alive.”
3.8/5 – Mash Those Buttons

“...the crass humor may not appeal to everyone, the sharp design and challenge that’s found in Ultionus will strike some kind of chord with anyone who initially play it and nostalgia withstanding.”
4/5 – Press Pause Radio

About This Game

Galactic hero Serena S has been trolled on Spacebook. This is obviously a cause to embark on an epic quest to punish the troll in question, who just happens to be The Space Prince. Guide Serena through 7 stages of shmup action, jumping, shooting, and yet decidedly more jumping and shooting to her ultimate goal of total testicular annihilation of her foe. Ultionus is a love-letter to the home computer arcade games of the late 80s and early 90s, particularly Halloween Harry, Astro Marine Corps, Duke Nukem 2 and especially Phantis/Game Over II. The game features tons of lovingly crafted pixel art, and a rockin' chiptune soundtrack by the legendary Jake 'Virt' Kaufman.

If you're going to make a challenging platformer, you better have responsive controls. Your character in this game controls like mud, and you cannot shoot vertically upwards for some asinine reason. You literally can only shoot upwards at a 30 degree angle.

This was tolerable up to a point, even though there's no excuse for it. The breaking point was an elevator level that went on seemingly forever, with a flying enemy with tons of hit points, who you have to shoot at (30 degree awkward shots) and quickly duck out of the way - except the animation time between shooting and ducking takes a long time, and that was when I put the game down.

Ultionus is a throwback platformer/shooter. A throwback to where? To this Amstrad game called Phantis. After a few play-throughs of this game I checked out some Phantis vids. The protag is wearing a space bikini, there's an alien planet, a couple 2D shooter stages, and dinosaur rides. Wow it's like I'm playing a next-gen sequel!...Well if next-gen was DOS.

That's mostly what this game reminds me of. Those good old days of shareware, dozens of action-platformers, and command prompts. For the most part this game is pretty decent. It's rough at first, since the heroine has a pitiful gun and a measly three hit-points. Checkpoints are fairly frequent but the bosses are pretty brutal(pattern memorization is a must). Most of the time the trick to getting around is to simply jump a lot and fire downwards. It's a higher rate of fire, and should keep the screen fairly clear. The game can get overwhelming though, since regular enemies adhere to the Ninja Gaiden school of design. They respawn constantly and whenever you move so much as an inch off-screen. It's frustrating but hey, that's how it goes sometimes.

Ultionus strikes an odd balance between old-school hardcore and what we take for granted today. There are unlimited continues, saves, and extra-lives are fairly frequent. Everything else though is a lesson in pain. The hit-box is large, so Serena takes damage whether it's a projectile to the gut or an alien that just grazes the soles of her boots. Enemies also love to hang out on cliffs or appear just when you're trying to make a jump. There are ways to make the game easier on yourself, but they're not terribly obvious. In fact in your first play-through you just might miss them entirely. Four of the seven stages offer hidden armor or weapon upgrades. Once you grab the rapid-fire you're pretty well set, though armor upgrades mean more damage can be taken(plus it's fashionable!). If you manage to beat this game without any upgrades, subsequent play-throughs are gonna be easy peasy fo' scheezy.

Less forgiving is that the Serena's ship is subject to inertia. Maybe that was a thing in older PC shmups but uhhhhh ehhhh ummm NO. Yeah sorry but when I stop moving my ship I want my ship to stop moving...INSTANTLY. The true final boss throws some bullets around and it makes those tight squeezes a bit too finicky. I'll throw this under nitpicking because I tend to get a little ornery about 2D shooters.

Oh and this game is short. Average play-through is about 30 minutes, 35 if you go for the good ending. That's in-line with Ultionus' inspiration, but it might not be enough for gamers today. I guess another one or two stages would have been nice. Perhaps these stages wouldn't be themed like the rest of the game. By that I mean Serena jumps and shoots through all too common environs. There's the Ice stage, fire stage, jungle stage, elevator stage, and you get the idea. On the other hand that extra stage could very well have turned out to be an underwater one, and that's just no bueno.

Ultionus does exactly what it was programmed to be; a pleasantly difficult retro-shooter-platformer. Yeah it's got issues but I dunno, I kinda like that it does. It makes for a more "authentic" experience. I've already got a billion games where the hit-boxes are perfect, the ships control flawlessly, and enemies stay dead for more than two seconds anyway. I can live on the wild side every now and then.

Once again, if you're the kinda person that buys a lot of indie bundles, you might already own this game. Give it a run-through.

We all know there are a billion side-scrolling shoot'em up platformers out there.

Why does this one stand out from all the Others? Effort.Effort made those fantastic retro style graphics.Effort made the awesome chip tune music.Effort is what will lead you to victory over the challenges this game has to offer.

It's a game that hearkens back to the days of when developers really cared about what they made.When games weren't created to line the pockets of publishers.When games were just... games.It's a game with soul... A sexy soul.

If you want to appreciate a classically inspired shooter from the second dimension, buy this now!Please support this title and the creators.

Awesome art quality, the gameplay is retro but got enough to be fun, controls are a bit limited yet difficulty is alright, the game is actually easy once you play a bit. There is only one attack that I haven't figured how to dodge 100% of the time, on the second boss, everything else can be worked out, some challenges the game throws at you even have multiple ways to overcome.

It is cheap on top. I'd like to say it's a must buy/play, but your opinion may vary since it is retro like I said, if you enjoy retro games get it, if you hate them you may still want to give it a try to check the art -which is very good looking pixel art covering the whole screen, from the hud to the character sprites and backgrounds. On easy mode you got infinite continues and checkpoints so you can experience the game fully.

just finished on normal mode. apparently i got the "good ending". yay me!

this game is what i'd call a prestine example of good gameplay and interesting game mechanics. from start to finish, it wasn't just a nostalgic blast from the past, everything about it was exciting and fun.

this is another one of those games that gets heat from audiences because of silly excuses like: "non-responsive controls" - a common and poor expectation that all games should give every player free reign; and sadly one that's been ruining games in today's industry.

one of my pet-peeves is useless game mechanics, and this game doesn't have any as far as i could find. in fact, crouching seems to be a practically useless feature - up until the frogs, where it actually does help avoid taking damage.

furthermore, the level designs are fantastic! it's not just the attractive art that motivates you to explore, but also the locations of valuable items (or worse: hazards) test your instincts and send you off on a real adventure.

I recommend this game, but with a huge caveat. How much do you really enjoy retro platforming?

Everything about this game is very well done: graphics, the Heavy Metal magazine heroine, and the fantastic soundtrack. There's even a good bit of replay value, which isn't always the case for platformers. The gameplay is... well, "retro".

If you've never experienced actual older games, or you tend to forget how many of them actually sucked, I recommend watching a playthrough of a game called Phantis, which this game is basically a remake or spiritual sequel of. With some exceptions, older platforming games often had slow, sluggish protagonists, with fast, incessantly spawning enemies, with awkward jumping and shooting controls. This game is no exception.

Serena walks slowly. She has to stand still to shoot. There's a small delay both before and after firing the actual projectile. She can only shoot up at a shallow angle (perhaps 30 degrees), but not straight up. You get hurt from touching a robot's toe or a wizard's robe. Additionally, the delay in firing means that if you try shooting just before you land, you won't fire. Even her ship takes a moment to accelerate to full speed when moving up or down. None of these would be a huge problem by themselves, but combined, it can lead to some very frustrating moments.

Everything else about Ultionus is improved over the older games; why not tighten up the gameplay too? There are also plenty of other "retro" games that actually have really great controls.

As I'm sure most can agree, it's more fun to challenge the game, not its controls. But if you love punishing gameplay, repetition until perfection, or just love all platforming games, then it's hard to do wrong by Ultionus. Even better, it's very inexpensive.

There's a lot to like about Ultonions: the bright retro graphics, the chip'ish music and even the sexuliased 80s heroine. But... The gameplay is not quite bad but the design aimed for retro and ended up with unresponsive instead.

You can aim in only 4 directions, left, diagonal left/up. right and diagonal right/up. It would have been better as an 8-way scheme. Or even just up - I want to shoot up.

You can shoot or walk, not both. And you walk slowly. This may be a side effect but quickly swinging round to shoot and swinging back again seem to stick. This is incredibly annoying when dealing with fast moving flying enemies.

The crouch animation is unusually long, you must wait for it to finish before firing or walking again. Popping down to shoot and popping back up to jump and dodge stuff is not going to happen.

About a fifth of your view is obscured on the left and right by the decorative interface. This makes the dino-riding stage particularly vexing as you can't see what's coming.

I cramped my thumb trying shoot fast - I haven't managed that since I had a Commodore 64. Not sure if this is a good or bad point.

I'm not recommending this but is a weak non-recommendation. Learning from your mistakes is big part of the game and that's good reto but not having the space to see or control responsiveness to react is bad retro. Games like Thundercats, Mask and Turrican all got this right 30 years ago - Ultonious really should have too.

TL;DR: Retro-styled in looks, sound, and difficulty, this sidescrolling run-and-gun platformer with some shmup stages will slap you around a bit, but will still play fair.

I'll preface this by saying I got this in the Groupees Be Mine 11 bundle. And this is probably the first time I've gotten a game, downloaded it, played it, AND beat it all in the span of maybe a couple of days. So with that said...

Ultionus is the story of a woman, her robot head partner, and a social networking comment that leads to a crash landing and a lot of things to kill. As you can tell by the screenshots, it's a "retraux" game, a modern game made with retro-inspired graphics and gameplay. You actually don't have a gun at the very start, so you need to rely on your bouncing robot head partner to destroy the enemies as you move to the left, and then you get a gun and can start blasting everything to death. This threw me off at first, but that's what experimentation is for, right?

I thought this game was pretty hard on Normal, but it wasn't unfair about it. Our heroine can only take so many hits before she explodes in a shower of cartoon hearts and respawns at the last checkpoint or stage entrance. You get restored to full health when you pass a checkpoint the first time or find a red heart 1UP. Controls are fairly tight, though Serena is a little slow on the ground and especially while firing since she stops altogether. You'll be spending most of your time in the air, and thankfully this game doesn't fall into "Castlevania 1 jumping" where you can't change directions mid-air. Hitboxes seemed pretty accurate and there aren't really any fancy controls. For the 360 controller, A could be tapped or held to change the height you jump, X and B fire your ray gun, Y doesn't seem to do anything, and the d-pad and stick both can be used for movement. No movement faster than a leisurely walk, no sliding, no wall-jumping...simple stuff.

There are upgrades, but you not only have to find a special coin in each level, but also get to the merchant's door. I'd also add "and have enough money to buy the upgrades" but you get money by killing everything you see, and you'll be doing that anyway. You have to choose between offense and defense, and you can only pick one per stage. If you find the coin and door that is. There are multiple routes through each normal platforming stage, and the auto-scrolling vehicle ones obviously only have one route. Get to the end of the level and you fight a giant enemy thing. Die and you start the fight all over again. Learn the boss patterns or you'll eat through your stock of lives (on Normal and Hardcore; Easy gives you infinite).

I would honestly suggest trying this on Easy first. It takes the pressure off of playing well and it'll allow you to go through stages by different routes and learn boss routines, even though running out of lives merely gives you a prompt to start the level over with 9 lives and all of your money, or exit the game. I started on Normal, and I honestly game overed twice, though I didn't get the best ending (the bad ending spells out what you need to do to avert it though). The dev has said on the Steam forum that playing on harder difficulties will unlock achievements for that and the difficulty level(s) below it. So if you get the best ending on Normal, you get the Easy achievement too, for example. There aren't many achievements but they're actually something to work towards. Without trying, I got two for winning on Normal with the bad ending and watching the credits all the way through.

Graphics are really colorful and the animations are quite nice. You can pretty easily tell what would hurt you and what won't, and there's quite a bit of detail work done here. You don't really notice the big border after a while. I didn't really feel like I'd do better if I didn't see it at all. The music's pretty catchy and I kinda wish there was a sound test option (or maybe there is one and I just haven't unlocked it yet). I don't really have much to say about the sound effects. They're there.

I won't do my usual "I liked/disliked this" sections since there's not much to say. I had fun. My heart raced, I cursed, and I'm not only glad this is on Steam, but I'm glad I gave this game a chance. It's short, but there's a little bit of replay value, and I can see myself giving this game a few more hours. I've forgotten what it's like to actually have to learn patterns and get penalized by starting boss fights over when I don't.

Ultionus is graphically beautiful, fun, challenging, and has more character and personality than many recent AAA titles that I've played. The achievements are pretty difficult and will take you several play-throughs to acquire. The game has replay value through multiple endings, multiple power up choices, and multiple difficulty levels.

All stages keep the gameplay fresh, and after a slight learning curve, you'll find yourself blasting enemies like a pro. In all, this is a fantastic homage to the 16bit classics, and you'll be itching for a sequel when you're done!

a great game if you an old gaming dude like me , reminds me of how awesome the 90s were in the days of AMIGA and IBM PC , the game has a great vibe of some great platformers that are too old for me to remember , but they share almost the same palette colours and guns , a wonderful game , i highly recommend it.

Simple shooter retro game. The story is too short, you can complete it within less than 30 minutes easily. The control has a few problem when you press "z" to shoot but nothing happen sometimes, I don't know it's only happen for me or not. A song of end credits is awesome, you should not skip it.

A game that brings nostalgia and inspired by late 80's and 90's games. The music is very good and sounds like it came from blast processing. I can really see this hitting off if this was relased in the early 90's. Challenging and fun gameplay although a little fustrating at times because there are unlimited respawning enemies at many parts of the game and it's very slow paced and requires a bit amount of patience but those things don't bring the game down at all. What really caught my eye in this game was the protag as she is purely fapbait and a busty version of Samus. I was satisfied with the ending and thought the devs did a really good job with this game.

Gorgeous pixel-art, fast paced classic C64/Amiga/Arcade action, secrets, branching paths, weapon/armour upgrades, and BANGING chiptune soundtrack by the legendary Virt and fantastic gameplay from start to finish. This really is an incredible game and well worth being in anyone's collection :)

This game takes me back!!! Sure call me old call me nostalgic.... i dont care!!! This one is challenging and fun!!!This takes me back too the 8 bit days and playing my heart out and pulling out my little hairs everytime i died lol This one is done real well and good pumping soundtrack too keep you blasting away.I say give this one a GO GO GO !!! I just have too say this is why i love the Steam Greenlight Program!!! On and off you can find a real JEM!!

Great boobs! I mean game! LOL.This game reminds me of the old school SEGA Genesis days with the 16-Bit graphics and background music. I say SEGA Genesis because I really don't think SNES had any games showing off a provocative woman with big boobs like what you find here. :PDon't be fooled. This game is a lot of fun playing as a totally hot babe with a "Pew Pew" gun, blasting alien creatures left and right.The game offers a pretty much retro action platform style with beautiful graphics and the controls are very easy to get used to. There is also a nice assortment of alien creatures to blast left and right.If you are into retro game then don't miss out on this. :)

Short, funny and retro-style. The pixel graphics are very nicely done, the music is cool, and I feel like I just traveled back in time to play Amiga at my friends house again. Good times. Got it in a bundle right before/during Greenlight, the full price is debatable since it's very short, but you should definitely buy it on a sale. With more content (although the developer have expressed this will NOT happen in the NEAR future) it will definitely be worth the full price. Also, the achievements for this one feels really worth it, you really have to fight to get them. Recommended.

Ultionus is a retro action adventure platformer with beautiful pixel graphics and nice music. Its art is amazing and the game itself reminds something of old school diamonds on game industry. Even though the aiming system of the gun is quite static(up,down,straight) and thus killing some bosses with must-hit spots is a little bit harder than normal. Overall, this game is over 90++/100 and worth trying!